


je ne regrette rien

by leiascully



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-13
Updated: 2010-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 14:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariadne rarely has sexual dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	je ne regrette rien

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Mid-movie  
> A/N: **This could be considered dubcon. If you have any issues with that, please do not read this fic.** Also, is this going to be the most overused title in this fandom or what?   
> Disclaimer: _Inception_ and all related characters are the property of Christopher Nolan and Legendary Pictures. No profit is made from this work and no infringment is intended.

Ariadne builds.

She still can't believe she's an architect of _dreams_. It is, coincidentally, something she used to dream about, those fitful adolescent nights when the night was the only time she felt real. She felt unfulfilled then. So what, everyone did. She slept poorly then - everyone did that too - and went about with rings under her eyes. Concealer only made them worse. She looked like the walking dead, up all night building models that never came out the way they looked in her head.

She spent all those years chasing sleep, and now all she has to do is take Yusuf's magic potions (she knows they're not magic, but at the same time, she can't disbelieve it), plug in, and slip into another world. She tells herself it's all right. Cobb would want her to practice. Perhaps she shouldn't be alone, but everyone went out for a croque Monsieur and an Abbaye or whatever it is they do when they're not at the warehouse.

She pulls the fabric of subconscious around her. She doesn't even need to think about it: it's all instinct. She can change the world; it's a snap just to change her clothes. She's in a ball gown, masked, walking through a mansion that's all mirrors and gilt, echoes of Versailles. She is everything she's never been in life - mysterious, elegant, enchanting. She turns a corner and a crowd of projections bow to her, just slightly. She nods back. The projections draw back as she passes, the rich fabric of her dress rustling like money. Her awareness is heightened. She thinks this is what being high must feel like. Yusuf didn't tell her about this side effect. The beauty of the dream makes her sad, almost, because it's perfect and intense. She turns the corner and is back at the beginning, just like she wanted. A mirror reflects back her masked face, unrecognizable under the feathers and sequins. She smiles.

This is her favorite part. She puts out her hand and brushes a door with her fingertips, the barest pressure. It swings open and there's another room, a ballroom, and the music that spills out of it gleams the way the walls do. She stands for a moment, drinking it in. This is her creation, an early masterpiece of many to come, the fruit of the mind her body has been transporting so carefully from place to place for all these years. At last she is where she belongs.

The music changes from a lively tune to something somber and dreamy, full of strings. She sways in, threading her way through the dancing couples. When one of the projections takes her hand, she lets him draw her into the dance. His other hand is firm on her back. His mask is bronze with pheasant feathers and hides most of his face. Still, he's handsome enough through the mouth and chin: she's pleased with her subconscious. She likes the way he holds her, like he knows what's he's doing and what he wants. She has been solitary the last few years, deep in her studies. Even the chance to be touched in her dreams is a relief.

His arm tightens around her and she smiles, drifting closer to him until their bodies are tight together, the fabric of her dress crushed between them. She sighs and presses herself closer, wanting the friction, wanting more. She rarely has dreams that involve sex. This one she wants to savor. Her hips move against his, slow but certain the way she never is awake. His lips part a bit and the way his tongue slips out to wet them is unbearable. The song changes again, back to jangly and upbeat, at least in terms of classical. His hand slips lower on her back, holding her to him. It's absurd that they're grinding to harpsichord music, but it's bliss too. She's unbearably, painfully aroused; she feels as if her heart will stop if he doesn't touch her. If she dies of this in the dream, she'll just wake up. She doesn't want to wake up. She looks up at him, trying to ask the question with her eyes. He smiles.

He guides her through the crowd to the edge of the floor. He doesn't say a word, but his hand at her waist guides her deftly. She can feel his fingers trembling just a bit in his urgency. She pushes open another door and there's a bed. She sits down on the edge of it and toes off her shoes as he bends over her, kissing her shoulder and unlacing the corset at her lower back. She lies back on the plush velvet coverlet as he eases the dress off her, his mouth moving from shoulder to breastbone to nipple (she gasps) to rib cage to belly to hipbone and down, oh, down. The dress is in a heap on the floor but she doesn't care. Her fingers are tangled in his hair. His mask is still on and the scrape of it against her inner thighs only improves things. His tongue flicks back and forth between her legs. She feels like she's dreaming within the dream. The walls and ceiling of the room are lined with mirrors of all sizes: everywhere she looks, she sees herself, limbs askew, flushed with pleasure and abandon. It only makes it better.

He slides a couple of fingers inside her - she can feel how wet she is - and thrusts, fingertips probing in her until she thinks she'll come apart at the seams. Her breath comes faster and noisier. She's trying not to moan in case she moans in real life, in the warehouse, in case her nipples are perking and her pelvis is rising as she lies there, plugged in. But she only plugged in for ten minutes - that's not enough time to find a café, much less order and eat. She's safe. Her body jerks. He holds her down, murmuring "Shhhh", letting her ride out the wave of pleasure that crashes through her.

The best part about being fucked by your subconscious is that he seems to know her in and out: where to touch, where to lick, where to drag his fingertips so that she wriggles, how hard she wants to be pinned down, how long she needs to recover between mind-blowing orgasms before he's touching her again, licking her again, leaving suck-marks on her hipbone. An hour and a half in the dream feels like a week.

It's the best week of her life.

The music filters slowly into her consciousness. She doesn't want to go. She's rising, rising as his head dips back between her legs, but as far as kicks go, this is going to be a hell of one. She feels herself closer and closer to bliss. Her fingers scrabble at his head, urging him on, and then as her world and the dream world both dissolve, she pulls off his mask.

It's Arthur.

She bolts awake, gasping without pleasure this time. "You bastard. You dirty bastard. I can't believe you did that."

"I thought you might want some company," he says, pulling out the connector without a wince. She yanks hers out too. "You seemed glad enough of it at the time. I wouldn't have touched you otherwise."

"I thought you were part of my subconscious!" she says. "I thought you were a projection!"

"They weren't yours," Arthur says. "They were mine. The dreamer doesn't generate projections. They come from the subject. You should know that."

"I forgot, okay?" she shouts at him. "I've only been doing this for a week!"

"Why are you angry?" he asks, calm and cool. "It was only a dream."

She doesn't have an answer. She hates him a little bit right now. Then again, she wants him to strip off all her clothes, her real clothes, and make love to her right here on this rickety chaise longue. She wants to feel his whole real body pressed against her. He passes a hand over his mouth, as if he can still feel her wetness there. She digs in her pocket for her half-finished totem, puts it on the little table and tips it over. It lands with a reassuring clank.

He smiles, but his mouth is crooked. "Sometimes I wish the dream hadn't ended. Sometimes I wish that the dream was reality. But then I think of those poor bastards who live only for the dreaming. I'd do anything to not be one of them. You're going to have to deal with those moments."

"I'm going home," she tells him, pushing off the chair and grabbing her jacket.

"I'm sorry I offended you, Ariadne," he says, looking at if as if he knows she's going to tumble onto her bed when she gets home and fuck herself stupid thinking of him, masked in a palace of mirrors.

"Wake up," she snaps at him, and storms off.


End file.
